Derrick Bell’s Afrolantica, Part 11: The Brown-Skinned Joan of Arc

In Part II of Afrolantica Legacies, Critical Race Theory founder Derrick Bell presents the seven essays and parables corresponding with the seven tenets of his political faith. The first narrative, titled “Chiara’s Enlightenment” illustrates the first of Bell’s racial dogmas:

Bell’s story describes a fictional encounter between himself and an alien named Chiara from the planet Nevus. This fantastic visitor traveled across the galaxy to earth in order to assure Bell of his affirmative action ideas’ enlightenment.

This chapter showcases some of the most obvious contradictions in Bell’s political theology.

On page 43 Bell reveals his adherence to Marxist pseudo-feminism, a doctrine that rejects — contrary to Biology 101 — the significance of innate differences in the genders:

But if gender means nothing — and if sex differences are just another tool the bourgeoisie use to oppress the proletariat — then why does Bell repeat on page 46 his belief that “black women will ultimately save our people”?

Note Bell’s telling reference and you have your answer: “this brown-skinned Joan of Arc.” Bell makes the black woman his idol because he needs concrete symbols of victimhood to worship. (We’ll get to his worship of Stalinist singer Paul Robeson soon.) By having a steady stream of victims on hand Bell can justify his own professional shortcomings. He can point to other great victims of history and count himself among them. He can deflect scrutiny of his own failures through blaming a conspiracy of permanent, incorrigible racism. This way he could always find someone else to blame for his own inabilities to achieve.

And today we see this same emotional need fulfilled in a big way as the followers of Derrick Bell anoint a new martyr in their Cult of the Victim:

Remember, Bell defines blackness as intertwined with victimhood. In order to sustain this theology which provides the foundation for their identity and the meaning to their lives, the adherents of the political cult must continually inflame the emotions of the mob:

Al Sharpton: Today, Black (and Latino) youth are routinely targeted, profiled and ‘mistakenly’ shot by those sworn to serve and protect us (i.e. Sean Bell). And now, in what can only be described as the most blatant form of vigilante murder, a 17-year-old named Trayvon Martin loses his life at the hands of self-proclaimed ‘crime stopper.’ But the only crime here is that this killer has ended poor Trayvon’s life under the guise of his own preconceptions and has not been charged, nor arrested. We will head to Florida to ensure that all that changes immediately.